I wrote a while back that I thought I could be falling for someone, a little.

I was wrong.
I didn’t fall.
I rose (thanks, Orshi).
I rose, and I climbed, and I built.

We built.
We are building.

After the first few weeks, the hot sand, and the butterflies, and the weightlessness, and the hummingbirds—they didn’t go away, exactly.

They settled.

Into something—steady. Something stable. Not comfortable, or easy, or difficult.
Something solid.

After the first few weeks, our dizzy summer roller coaster of heat and lust and nerves became a steady hike.
An adventure. Warm, like early June—sunny, but not too hot.

The kind of enjoyable climb that makes us glad we have arms, and legs, and hearts, and mountains to hike, and things to build.

So, as we fall, or rise, or climb, or build, or whatever it is we are doing, let’s pause.

Let’s pause, because, too often, we do not stop to enjoy the moment.

The space in between.

That place between asleep and awake.

Where the dreams and the waking world blend, where the moon and the sun share the sky, where this life bleeds into the next.

Let’s pause, because these feelings may last forever, but they may not, and if they don’t, I would like to remember them, and you, and me, and us, as we are right now.

While we fall in love, there are some things I would like to remember, and some things I would like to ask, and some things I would like you to know.

What do you need, dearest? Please always tell me. If this thing is going to work, we need to communicate. I am a writer and you are a talker, but between the two of us, maybe we can paint?

You are the first person I have liked to cuddle with. Maybe it’s because you are big and broad and make me feel tiny and delicate, and I have never felt tiny and delicate, or maybe it’s because you make me feel safe, or maybe it’s because when I’m with you, I don’t feel like I need to put up a wall between us.

I feel like me. And you feel like home.

You are an adventurer, and I am a wanderer. You like your feet on the ground, and my heart is full of the sun.

Let’s go.

Explore.

Separately.

Together.

You will go on travels, I will go on rambles.

That is good. Don’t ever feel scared that I am leaving you, and I will never feel resentful that you are going.

We’ll come back together.

And, together, we will go on journeys that we would not have known without the other, for you are more directed and I tend to float. I will make sure we get our heads and hearts on the road, and you will make sure we get there alive, and have beds, or tents, or a soft meadow, to sleep in.

On that note, can we keep our own lives, and continue to build one together? You go play kickball on weekends and drink beer and throw Frisbees in the park and spit, wherever boys do the boy things. I will write and yoga and cook and daydream and drink ginger tea in tiny little cafes. I’ll come home to your fluffy, undone hair and cozy pajama bottoms, and make homemade pizza on a cookie sheet, because I refuse to buy kitchen things not from the thrift store, and I cannot find a pizza stone.

You will read, and I will type, and we will touch toes occasionally, and your hand will come to rest on the back of my neck. I will smile, and the line between my brows will melt as the corners of my mouth rise, and we grin at each other,

because, you.

Let’s continue to flirt over red wine and tell secrets in the dark, sheets cool and hearts warm, windows open to the sounds of the night, Orion watching over us, protective.

I will always want to be sexy for you, and sway my hips as I walk, because I know it makes you crazy. I want you to wink at me, like we are new, and it makes me giggle, like I am young.

Can we keep it tender, always? I don’t mean can we always be sweet and can it always be like new, because I would like to be old with you, I think. I mean can we always come from our agreed place of no judgment? When we are feeling angry, or confused, or hurt, can we not put up defenses, or build walls? Can we come to the other and be able to say, ”I am feeling this way. Can you help me understand this?” Can we go without feeling attacked, or harassed, or criticized? As yet, our temperaments flow together like a great, wide river—strong, and purposeful, but without white water, or hidden rips.

Can we keep it that way?

Continue to take care of you. Take your alone time. I take mine. We need it— this time apart—so that we can be better together.

It makes us stronger.

I am rising in me and it thrills me to see you climb in you.

As we build this together, from the ground up.

Let’s stay excited. And playful. Let’s continue to be buddies, and play laser tag, and go on last minute road trips, and buy silly hats, and give space, and dress up, and dress down, and sometimes, oftentimes, let’s wear nothing at all. Let’s go play baseball and get pizza, and then barely make it in the door for want of ripping each other’s clothes off.

Surprise me in the shower, for happy mornings and brighter days.

Draw me a bath, with candles and salts and my favorite bluesy music.

Then: tuck me into bed with a kiss on the forehead and a hand on my belly.

I want you to look at me in the morning sunshine, hair a mess and eyelids heavy, and think that maybe I am magic.

I want to see you glance up at me, crooked smile and crinkled eyes, and think that probably you were gifted, especially for me.

I have always wanted to find you—a friend, a lover, a partner.

Someone that I could look at and say, “hey, you. You’re awesome. Let’s be together. Not because I need you or because you complete me or because our lives will be lost or meaningless if we don’t get together. We’re both pretty independent, low maintenance types, and we’d get on okay without. But because our lives will be richer. We will be richer. We will make something, together, that is rare. It won’t always be easy, and it won’t always be fun. Some days, there will be more storms than moon beams, and the peach trees will be bare.

But I’ve got your back, and I know you’ve got mine.

We will be friends, and we will laugh, and explore, and I will love you, every day, and we will touch toes, every night, because you’re my person. And I want to see you grow. I want to see me, rise. I want to watch us, build, together.”

I had to find myself to find you. I always knew that I was in here, somewhere—and it’s taken me forever to find that girl. To know her.

And I want to spend forever getting to know you.

While we fall in love.

This is the second in the series. See the first here.

Relephant: 

When I Say I Love You This is What I Mean

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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 Editor: Renée Picard

Photos: Thomas/Pixoto, Amin/Pixoto